Moorland Landscape with Sunset, Collioure, c. 1910

oil on canvas

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After studies at the Carmarthen Art School in Wales, the Welsh-born Innes enrolled at the Slade School in London where he formed a close friendship with Derwent Lees. Lees and Augustus John had a major influence on Innes’ development as a painter, and the three artists travelled together in North Wales. Innes was drawn to the Expressionist movement and an arbitrary colour palette; however, like the Impressionists, his colours and their application were often informed by the way the natural light animated the landscape. Avoiding techniques such as scaling and shadowing, Innes used quick brushstrokes and blocks of colour to document images of the land. In this moorland landscape, Innes’s dramatic style is punctuated by the heavy impasto of dark earthy greens, mauves, smoky blues, and burnt orange colours, which give form to the contoured hills, swirling clouds, and low-lying shrubs.